Home-molded toys and systems and methods for the production thereof are well known. A system first marketed by Mattel Inc in the nineteen-sixties under the brand Thingmaker® produces small one-sided rubber-like figures called Creepy Crawlers®, which is shown and described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creepy_Crawlers. Similar systems are taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,215,843 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,548.
One disadvantage of such prior art is the need for heat to cure the molded figures and the numerous obvious problems associated therewith. Another disadvantage is that the uncured materials are easily accessible to the child and that the figures are accessible to the child prior to full curing. Another disadvantage is that the figures remain too hot for handling for an extended period of time, even after curing. Another disadvantage is that the figures, cast in a one-sided mold, are not truly full-bodied, but instead are more “half-bodied” in that they have a contoured front side and a flat rear side, otherwise referred to as “bas-relief”, and are therefore not realistic. Another disadvantage is that the figures, pour-cast under ambient pressure, are prone to include air bubbles and are incapable of forming very fine details. Another disadvantage is that the system provides no means for insert-molding accessories and limbs into the figures. Another disadvantage is that the system provides no means for producing multi-colored figures. Another disadvantage is that the system allows no flexibility in material choices to produce figures having differing physical properties. Another disadvantage of the Mattel prior art system is that the material used was highly plasticized polyvinyl chloride, which poses toxicological and environmental threats.
There exists a need for improvement in the methods for home-molding toy figures to overcome the various deficiencies of the prior art, including those listed above, and such is an object of the present invention.
Further needs and objects exist, which are addressed by the present invention, as may become apparent by the included disclosure of one or more exemplary embodiments thereof.